The Start of Something: 1st Place at #NRGCHAMP
The Start of Something
2024 has been an exceptional year for me in Magic. Qualifying for and winning the NRG Series Championship and playing in all three Pro Tours and Worlds has been an incredible experience. I was surprised any of it happened, as I wouldn’t have considered myself a very strong player even two years ago. This made me reflect on what edge I had as a competitor this year. I must be doing something differently than most tournament players, something beyond just a long streak of dumb luck. Upon reflection, I struggled to come up with anything. I’m far from a world-class technical player. I frequently make simple mistakes—missing triggers, making bad attacks, tapping my lands incorrectly, etc. If you can think of a technical error in Magic, I’ve probably made it in a tournament. My strategic play is fairly sound, but not at a level that gives me a significant advantage against top players. I’m also not much of an innovator, usually sticking to established builds rather than trying to break metagames with new decks. So, what’s left?
When I looked back at the decks I registered in 2024, I realized I never chose a deck that I considered a bad pick for an event. The closest I came to a whiff was Esper Midrange for Pro Tour Thunder Junction in Seattle, but even that choice was reasonable, given its overall win rate was close to 50%. It may not have been the best deck for that tournament, but it was far from awful. The other decks I registered—such as Rakdos Vampires for Pro Tour Murders of Karlov Manor in Chicago, Nadu for Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 in Amsterdam and NRG Chicagoland, and Dimir Midrange for Worlds—were among the best, if not the best, choices for those events. Additionally, when reflecting on the sideboard plans for each deck at these major events, I felt they were solid, even after the fact. The majority of my edge came from careful deck selection and tuning my decks to execute effective plans against the toughest players in the expected field. In this article, I’ll focus on what went through my mind as I selected and fine-tuned my decks for the 2024 NRG Series Championship.
Preparations
I prepared for NRG Champs in a group with Andrew Elenbogen, Dom Harvey, Connor Mullaly, and Maxx Kominowski. Dom, Connor, and I had been planning to test together for a while, so adding Maxx and Andrew after the last weekend of the season in Elmhurst was a pleasant surprise. Five people might seem like a lot for a 24-person field, but with three formats to cover, the benefit of having more hands seemed to outweigh the potential awkwardness of running into each other during the tournament. A three-format tournament is a lot to prepare for, and even with this many people, I felt like we were a little shorthanded. I think we did a good job selecting and tuning decks, even though I didn’t end up registering any of our ‘team decks’.
Standard
Standard was the format I had the strongest background in, having played at Worlds in Vegas just two months prior. I’d also played a lot of Standard before the release of Foundations, and it didn’t seem like things had changed drastically afterward. We started by testing the most popular decks and quickly ruling out several options. It’s crucial to quickly discern which decks are bad and eliminate them from the pool of candidates. Spreading yourself too thin by working on too many decks usually results in a long list of poorly-tuned choices at the end of the testing process, rather than a small group of well-tuned ones. As for decks we ruled out, Golgari Midrange didn’t seem to have a single good matchup, Oculus folded too easily to graveyard hate, and Mono-White couldn’t consistently beat anything other than Golgari. Andrew had a brief stint with Zur Domain, but after a demoralizing set of matches against Dimir, he shelved the idea.
After this initial exploratory phase, two decks stood out as the best candidates: Gruul Prowess and Dimir Midrange. Both decks were proactive and powerful and had the added consistency of a manabase featuring four Verges in addition to the other available fixing.
I played a fair amount with both decks and realized that with the way Dimir maindecks are currently constructed, they are fairly weak against red. The shift away from Deep-Cavern Bat and black 3-drops like Preacher of the Schism and Unstoppable Slasher to a package with 4 Floodpits Drowner and 4 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares made Dimir more cohesive and powerful. However, the lack of black 3-drops made Dimir worse at playing defensively in Game 1—a role it often has to take against red. With that knowledge, I focused most of my efforts on refining Gruul, as it was the candidate with a potential edge over Dimir.
When we started testing Gruul, combining stock Gruul lists with Quinn Tonole’s Mono-Red list from Worlds seemed like the best approach. Playing Screaming Nemesis in high numbers seemed like the only way to gain an edge in the mirror, and it became clear that Hired Claw was much better than Monastery Swiftspear.
A crucial part of my Standard preparation was recognizing that Innkeeper’s Talent was a good card early on. It’s the best card you can play against Dimir, as they have no way to remove enchantments, making it difficult for them to ignore any creature you put into play. Gruul is creature-dense, and the ability to augment every threat on the board means that every creature you draw eventually becomes a target for removal. Having a repeatable way to trigger Valiant that can’t be removed meant that a resolved Talent would often turn Emberheart Challengers and Heartfire Heroes into good draws in the mid-to-late game, rather than bricks. Gruul is also prone to flooding out, so having a mana sink in the form of leveling up Talent was valuable. The shift from Temporary Lockdown to Authority of the Consuls in Sunfall decks also made Talent much better, as it allows you to grow creatures you already have in play, rather than requiring you to commit more material to the board to apply pressure. Having four Talents is a liability in the mirror, but it’s far from a dead card. Having it on the play can win you some games, and getting your creatures out of Burst Lightning/Torch the Tower range early is valuable.
A decent way to measure how good a card is is the “groan test.” When you play the card, how dissatisfied do your opponents look? Do they make a face, make an audible noise, or maybe even yell an expletive or two? Innkeeper’s Talent passes the groan test with flying colors.
By the time of deck submission, I settled on the following list:
I wanted more 1-drops than the usual 8 found in most Gruul lists. With four Innkeeper’s Talent, the value of having a creature on turn 1 is much higher, so I added two Monastery Swiftspear. In the sideboard, I didn’t register any copies of Urabrask’s Forge, and I’m confident that was the right call. Authority of the Consuls in high numbers makes Forge a blank against Mono-White and Domain in games where they have it. Against Dimir, it doesn’t perform consistently well either. Post-board Dimir configurations typically include high numbers of Preacher of the Schism, Sheoldred, and Tishana’s Tidebinder. Too many times, I felt foolish staring at an Urabrask’s Forge in my hand while my opponent played a turn-3 Preacher on the play. As a result, I replaced Forges with more deal-5s in the 75. The rest of the team, except for Maxx (who ended up playing Otters), registered Dimir. I liked their list and thought it was a fine choice, but Gruul felt better positioned against the most popular decks at the time. If you’re curious about my sideboard plans, you can find them here.
Pioneer
I was always going to play Jund Sacrifice. It’s my favorite deck in Magic right now, and unless I feel like I cannot possibly win with it, I’ll play it. Thankfully, Jund Sac was far from terrible. The printing of Scavenger’s Talent and Ygra, Eater of All gave the deck an entirely new angle, particularly effective against Phoenix—a matchup it used to struggle with. Along with Rakdos Demons being a slightly-favored matchup, this felt like the best Sac had been in a while. Many of my discussions about Sacrifice happened outside of my testing group, as no one else was interested in playing it. Andrei Klepatch, a fellow Sac enjoyer who was preparing for the Pioneer MOCS Showcase, was a great discussion partner. Andrei did most of the legwork on the list, like building the Verge manabase for the US Regional Championship and adding Syr Ginger as a flex slot for the Showcase, so all I had to do was tune it for this specific event.
I didn’t expect anyone on Lotus Field, which allowed me to cut the Damping Spheres and free up two slots. I added a second Ob Nixilis, the Adversary, as I expected some Azorius Control, and added a Duress. Syr Ginger was a card that had previously seen some play but hadn’t been revisited post-Scavenger’s Talent. Sacrifice is much better at generating artifacts now, thanks to Talent, so I felt Syr Ginger could have more impact this time. With how much Azorius Control I (wrongly) expected in Pioneer, Andrei convinced me to play the second copy. Also, the resurgence of 5-Color Niv made the threat of dodging Vanishing Verse a non-trivial factor.
Having no Claim the Firstborns in my deck felt odd, as I had long considered it one of the most broken cards in the deck. I used to say that if you don’t want to register Claims maindeck in Sac, you shouldn’t play the deck at all. However, its omission made sense given the amount of Phoenix I expected and the fact that it was fine but not amazing against Demons. I had also planned to register Heartless Act in the sideboard over the Claim that I ultimately submitted, but I ended up submitting the wrong decklist file. This proved to be fairly punishing in the tournament, as I played against Demons in three out of four Pioneer matches.
Modern
I won’t go into too much detail here, as the recent bans have rendered most of my insights into this format obsolete. I started playing Mardu Energy early in the testing process and never looked back. The deck was consistently beating its bad matchups, and Dreams of Steel and Oil was a great tool for gaining ground against Boros builds of the mirror and sniping key pieces from combo decks like Belcher and Broodscale. The deck was winning races against combo decks designed to beat it about a third of the time, and I felt solidly favored in post-board games with hammers like Stony Silence and Blood Moon, backed up by 4 copies of Thoughtseize.
I would never have played 3 copies of Blood Moon over 3 pieces of storm hate in an open field, but I expected zero copies of Ruby Storm and thought some players would bring Amulet or other big mana decks. The rest of my teammates ended up playing Broodscale, which made sense to me in theory, but I just liked Mardu too much. After going 8-2 in the AspiringSpike Modern Madness event, with my loss in the Top 8 being the mirror, I had no temptation to jump ship.
Tournament Report
The NRG Series Championship is my favorite Magic event to play. Everyone in the field is an experienced player, and the folks at NRG take excellent care of us, providing personalized apparel like framed shadowboxes and jackets with our names on them. They also catered lunch and made sure there was plenty of water available for competitors. This year’s tournament structure featured 12 rounds with a cut to the Top 8, and I couldn’t have been happier about NRG moving away from the old structure, where no one knew who was winning or what round we were in. It’s refreshing to have a tournament organizer who listens to player feedback and takes action to improve their events.
Here’s how Day One went:
Modern
Bob Culp (Boros Energy) 2-1
Stephen Dykman (Azorius Chant) 0-2
Mae French (Mardu Energy) 2-0
Pioneer
Harrison Kanfer (Rakdos Demons) 2-1
Justin Brickman (Rakdos Demons) 2-1
Sean Gallagher (Azorius Control) 1-2
Standard
Camari Bolger (Mono-White Control) 2-0
Nikachu (Merfolk) 2-0
A 6-2 record meant I was tied for king of the hill with Dom overnight. Strangely, both of my losses were to Azorius Control. My match against the Azorius Chant deck felt somewhat hopeless and despite the deck looking strange to me on paper, it seemed to have a lot going for it against Energy. I usually go to bed at a reasonable time, but after being constantly woken up by my cat and only getting four hours of sleep, I was still ready for Day Two.
Standard
Matt Hoey (Dimir Midrange) 2-1
Bob Culp (Mono-Red Aggro) 2-0
After just two rounds on Day Two, I was locked for Top 8 and the 1st overall seed. I planned to take a nap in my car before the Top 8 started since I had two hours to kill, but a group of players who had been eliminated needed a sixth for a cube draft, and I couldn’t say no. Frederick, the creator of the cube, explained its contents, saying it was a mostly Standard power-level cube where Bonecrusher Giant was the best card, but I questioned this claim when I P1P1’d a Swords to Plowshares. I ended up drafting a great Orzhov Sacrifice deck and had a blast killing people with Bastion of Remembrance, which brought back memories of being locked in my house during the pandemic and drafting an ungodly amount of Ikoria. As I finished my draft, the standings went up, and it was time for the Top 8. I saw both Andrew and Dom had made it as well, and I was glad we all dodged each other in the quarterfinals.
Quarterfinals
(Video coverage from this match is available here)
The Top 8 of this event features an interesting format where the lower-seeded player can veto one of the three formats to be played. Then, the higher-seeded player chooses from the two remaining options. Harrison vetoed Pioneer, as he was playing Rakdos Demons. I vetoed the Energy mirror, as I felt Zur Domain would struggle against Gruul on the draw. The details of this match were fairly uneventful. My draws were good, and Harrison couldn’t keep pace with the number of threats I was generating. He also missed his third land drop for a turn in game 2. Having double Authority of the Consuls on turn 2 didn’t help him either, especially against my Heartfire Hero into Innkeeper’s Talent start.
Semifinals
I was happy to see that both Dom and Andrew also won their quarterfinals. Unfortunately, I ended up playing against Andrew. He tanked for a while on what to veto and eventually chose Standard, while I vetoed Pioneer. In Modern, Mardu Energy vs Broodscale is usually favored for Broodscale, but I had made adjustments to my deck—like adding a Fatal Push main and including 3 Stony Silence in the sideboard to shore up the matchup a bit. Thankfully, Andrew’s deck didn’t function as expected in either game, and I moved on to the finals.
Finals
(Video coverage from this match is available here)
The finals were long, so I won’t go into every detail. I won match 1 while on the play with Gruul, but lost match 2 against Orhzov Demons after keeping a one-lander on six cards in game 3. I’m convinced the keep was correct, but I bricked on lands for too long and got punished. Match 3 was a bit sloppy on my part. In game 1, there were two turn cycles where I made multiple on-board errors, including drawing with The One Ring while facing an active Narset. I don’t really have an excuse for that—other than playing Magic all day on little sleep. Maybe playing cube instead of taking a nap in my car was a bad idea. Ultimately, my mistakes didn’t matter, and with some lucky breaks in game 2, I became the 2024 NRG Series Champion. Props to Stephen, though—he played excellently throughout the match and the tournament.
The End of Something
Winning the NRG Championship feels like the perfect capstone to what has been the best year I’ve had in Magic. It aligns with how 2024 went overall—I made plenty of mistakes but selected good decks and got very lucky. This was my third year playing the event, and it feels amazing to finally bring home the trophy. Norm and the team at NRG run fantastic events, and I can’t thank them enough for this past weekend—and all the tournaments earlier this year. Huge thanks as well to Maxx, Dom, Andrew, Connor, and Andrei for their huge help with testing, and to Michael, Cam, and Watts for lending me cards. I plan on playing Pro Tour Aetherdrift in Chicago in February, and I hope it goes just as well as this one.
Thanks for reading,
Theo
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